Rupert Murdoch vs Mitt Romney

Fox News and Wall Street Journal mogul Rupert Murdoch has gone public with his dislike of Mitt Romney. Murdoch tweeted on July 1, “Met Romney last week. Tough O Chicago pros will be hard to beat unless he drops old friends from team and hires some real pros. Doubtful.” Murdoch is displeased that Romney has retained some of the same campaign advisers from his 2008 run for president. Last week, Murdoch tweeted about Romney, "Seems to play everything safe, make no news except burn off Hispanics."

When asked if he had contributed to Romney's campaign, Murdoch replied, “None!” Generally Murdoch is not shy about contributing to political candidates, including Democrats. He contributed $6,500 to Hillary Clinton's Senate campaigns. 12 percent of his political contributions have gone to Democrats. He has contributed to Senators Chuck Schumer (D-NY), John Kerry (D-MA), Joe Lieberman (I-CT), Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Al Gore.

On Thursday of last week, Murdoch's Wall Street Journal ran a scathing editorial declaring that the Romney campaign was hapless and “looks confused in addition to being politically dumb.”

How valid is this criticism? Romney had the best ground team of the Republican presidential candidates this past year. Many strategists predicted early on that he would cinch the nomination due to his superior organization, something not usually foreseeable in presidential primaries. Romney is slightly behind Obama in polling, but that is not predictive of how the election will turn out. In 1992, incumbent president George H.W. Bush led Bill Clinton by five points in June prior to the election, but went on to lose the election. Political analyst Dick Morris has observed that undecided voters tend to break towards the insurgent.

The polling that has proven most accurate about presidential elections is the incumbent president's approval ratings. Generally, incumbent presidents must have approval ratings of 49% or above in order to win reelection. Obama's approval rating is averaging around 47%.